Aerialist Nik Wallenda completed a tightrope walk a quarter mile over the Little Colorado River Gorge near the Grand Canyon in Arizona on Sunday. Wallenda, of the renowned Flying Wallendas, performed the stunt on a two-inch-thick steel cable, 1,500 feet above the river on the Navajo Nation. Nik Wallenda Grand Canyon Walk He took just more than 22 minutes to complete the tightrope walk, pausing and crouching twice as winds whipped around him and the rope swayed. Nik Wallenda didn’t wear any sort of harness and stepped slowly and steady throughout, murmuring prayers to Jesus almost constantly along the way. “Thank you Lord. Thank you for calming that cable, God,” he said at one point about 13 minutes into the walk, when things got particularly harrowing. The event was broadcast live on the Discovery Channel (above). Winds had been expected to be around 30 m.p.h. Wallenda said they were “unpredictable” and that dust had accumulated on his contact lenses. “It was way more windy, and it took every bit of me to stay focused the entire time,” said the 34-year-old Sarasota, Fla., resident and daredevil. Nik is no stranger to high-wire stunts. His great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, fell during a performance in Puerto Rico and died at the age of 73. Several other family members, including a cousin and an uncle, have perished while performing wire walking attempts such as his on Sunday. Nik Wallenda is still here, fortunately, having grown up performing with his family and dreamed of crossing the Grand Canyon since he was a teen. Sunday’s stunt comes a year after Nik Wallenda traversed Niagara Falls and earned a seventh Guinness world record … this one may take the cake. Where do you go from here? The event was touted as a walk across the Grand Canyon, an area held sacred by many American Indian tribes, though it was actually just nearby. Some local residents believe Wallenda and Discovery didn’t accurately pinpoint the location … but come on, that was a pretty impressive tightrope walk!
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Nik Wallenda Grand Canyon Walk: Aerialist Crosses Quarter-Mile Chasm on Wire
